Poppie Nongena’s arduous journey covers 40 years of South Africa’s history, sweeping through the riots of Sharpeville, Soweto and Cape Town, on to an indefinite but unpromising future.The plot reflects the brutality and injustice of the Apartheid system, while Elsa Joubert’s characterisations reflects the courage and fortitude of people in the face of hardship and difficulty.

Poppie’s contented childhood in the Cape’s countryside came to an end when she married a migrant worker, and was forced by the authorities to move with him and their young family to the unfamiliar and bewildering city of Cape Town.

No sooner had she established her roots in the new township, when the laws changed and she was informed of her obligation to relocate to the Ciskei, her husband’s homeland. He, as a migrant worker, was permitted to remain in the Cape to work.

Over a ten-year period, Poppie fought the heinous ‘pass law’ system, winning limited extensions to the permit that would allow her to live and work in Cape Town and enable her to keep the family together and provide an education for her children.

Her own anger was shared by thousands and inevitably the brooding undercurrent of discontent exploded throughout South Africa. Suddenly, there were no further extensions. Poppie and her children were forcibly removed from their home and ‘resettled’ in a new township, hundreds of miles away near East London.

The Long Journey of Poppie Nongena is an epic tale of the endless adversity and struggle of a humble black woman under Apartheid laws. Poppie emerges from being a simple country girl to becoming an archetypal heroine of South Africa.

The Author

Since the publication of Elsa Joubert’s first novel in 1963, Ons wag op die kaptein, for which she was awarded the Eugène Marais prize, she won 14 further awards for her writing including the W A Hofmeyer prize, the Recht Malan and Hertzog Prize. In 1981 the British Royal Society of Literature awarded her the Winifred Holtby prize, and she also became a Fellow of the Society. Her most recent book, The Hunchback Missionary was published earlier this year.